


darling, we're history in the making

by annadavidson



Series: let us duel the stars (a mass effect dual au) [5]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Dual AU, M/M, Mass Effect AU, Mass Effect Dual AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 11:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11147604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annadavidson/pseuds/annadavidson
Summary: Julian wasn’t used to taking a day off.Prompt: A lazy day in bed. Ryder makes Jaal breakfast with that gross food paste Angara make. Ryder doesn't make it right but Jaal really appreciates it and Ryder feels really good and it's followed by a cute little kiss from Jaal on Ryder's nose.Dedicated to #MakeJaalBi and everyone involved in the movement.





	darling, we're history in the making

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: Brief mention of scars/cuts, however there is no description of self-harming/cutting.
> 
> In this Dual AU, Julian is in a healthy, consenting, committed open relationship with Jaal, Gil, and Reyes; Jaal is also in a similar relationship with my friend's oc, Zaal. This fic, however, focuses on Julian's relationship with Jaal.
> 
> This fic is dedicated to the #MakeJaalBi movement and everyone involved in it. I'm proud and honored to have been a part of it with every one of them.

Julian wasn’t used to taking a day off. He liked to have some semblance of a schedule, a routine. He didn’t like when he had to change that. It made him uncomfortable. Perhaps he was growing used to it – or numb – after becoming a Pathfinder, his life had become rather unpredictable. Or perhaps it was the fact that he was with a loved one that kept him from fidgeting, kept him feeling comfortable.

They were in his quarters. Jaal’s clothes were still on the floor, a thin blanket the only thing covering the angaran from the waist down. Julian’s face turned red and hot when he thought about what they’d done the previous night. He still wasn’t used to… _this,_ even if it happened often enough to be considered “normal.” He wasn’t used to people being interested in him. For years, any man he’d thought was attractive, rather than looking at him, looked to one of his siblings. He wasn’t used to someone wanting a relationship with him, to someone falling in love with him.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he and Jaal were both aliens to each other. Jaal wasn’t the first non-human he’d been attracted too – he happened to think quarians were cute. It was waking up to a smiling face, eyes gazing back at him with love. It was having someone to lean against that wasn’t a friend – someone that was _more._ It was all of this and more that made him feel like he wasn’t awake, but in a dream.

Only in a dream could he look at someone and know how they felt about him. Only in a dream could he _know_ that was love in Jaal’s eyes. Only in a dream could someone fall for him.

But this _wasn’t_ a dream. Jaal was here, and he was real, and they were both in love.

Julian hadn’t known about the angara, about how they felt toward relationships between different races – between a human and an angaran. He hadn’t known if Jaal would reciprocate his feelings. He hadn’t known if Jaal wouldn’t mind that he wanted an open _committed_ relationships. He hadn’t known if Jaal wouldn’t mind that he couldn’t help falling for two other people as well as him. He hadn’t known if Jaal would break his heart.

And if there was one thing Julian didn’t like, it was not knowing things. The unknown was dangerous, nerve-wracking. The unknown could hurt. But Jaal had been an unknown that he was glad to have discovered.

Julian had slipped on a pair of pants – in a tired, post-waking up, haze, he had almost put Jaal’s pants on before he had realized his mistake and grabbed the right pants – and slippers. He’d told Jaal to wait in bed for him and gotten a hum – purr? – as a response from his boyfriend. He hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt, looking at the time and figuring majority of the crew wasn’t awake yet, and if they were, they hadn’t been awake long enough to be at the kitchen.

He’d made his way to the kitchen, feeling a chill on his usually covered bare chest and arms. The lack of a shirt left a mixture of tattoos, scars, and cuts standing out like paint on a canvas. Despite the fact that he hadn’t ran into anyone else yet, and he was feeling rather comfortable in his own skin, he still held his arms in the right position and angle to make it harder for people to see his waist and the underside of his arms.

When he got to the kitchen, he stared at the recipe Jaal’s True Mother had sent him for several minutes. He had already memorized it after she had first sent it to him, but now he stared at it, trying to figure out how those ingredients could be combined to make anything appetizing.

Admittedly while gifted, Julian wasn’t gifted when it came to cooking. Scott was the chef of the family, often cooking for him and their sisters when their mother hadn’t been available or able to. He was certain if he had asked, Scott would have taught him. He could cook basic stuff. He thought if he could memorize the recipe – which he could – then actually cooking it shouldn’t be _that_ hard.

However it turned out that cooking food he couldn’t actually taste test wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be. Somehow the kitchen had gone from spotless to covered in angaran baking ingredients and pieces of this paste that they apparently liked to eat. Julian felt bad for whoever’s job it was to clean the kitchen before he realized that because he created the mess, it was most likely _his_ job to clean it up.

He heard footsteps and an impressed whistle and found himself standing rather embarrassedly in the middle of a giant mess and poorly baked food, and Liam looking at him with both eyebrows raised.

“What happened here?” he asked, sounding both intrigued and concerned. “Did you get in a food fight and forget to invite me?”

Julian blinked, not registering that he was joking. “I was baking,” he stated matter-of-factly.

Liam chuckled. “I can see that.”

Julian stood there awkwardly. “Why aren’t you with Gabby?”

Liam gestured in the direction of the bathrooms. “I had to use the loo.” He stepped into the kitchen, treading carefully so not to step on any food that had found its way to the floor. “What were you baking?”

Julian shrugged, looking to the pasty food he didn’t think he’d prepared correctly. It reminded him of that time when Scott used to eat paste. “I thought… I thought I’d make Jaal breakfast and surprise him with it.” He looked to Liam, not meeting his eyes, but rather focusing just under them. “That’s what couples do, right?”

Liam grinned as if he was as delighted to see his best friend in love as Julian was to be in love. “He’ll love it.”

“He will?”

“Absolutely!” he walked over, placing a hand on the Pathfinder’s shoulder. “Go surprise Jaal, I’ll clean up this mess.”

Julian hesitated, taking a moment to be certain that Liam was serious. Before he would have asked why Liam would offer to do that – he hadn’t made the mess, after all – but he’d gotten to know Liam and he knew he offered because it was what friends did for each other. He made a mental note to figure out later how to repay Liam.

For now, he smiled at his best friend and said, “Thank you!”

He put the food on a plate and hurried off back to his quarters. When he returned, he found Jaal still in bed, curiously flipping through a book he’d left by the bed. Jaal looked up from the old, worn pages of the book to his boyfriend, who stood awkwardly with the door closed behind him. Julian felt his own face heat up, though he couldn’t tell if Jaal was blushing or not. Jaal watched him curiously as he approached the bed, sitting down on the edge and offering up the plate.

“I uh – I made you breakfast,” Julian said as Jaal took the plate, setting it on his lap and grasping the spoon. “Your mother – ah, _True Mother_ – sent it to me, and I wanted to surprise you because, well, I think that’s something people do when they’re in love and you know I love you…”

As he was talking, Jaal took a bite of the food. It was obvious he tried to hide it, but the face he couldn’t help making told the other man that the food’s taste was lacking, at best.

“Do you not like it?” Julian asked before Jaal had a chance to speak, “You don’t have to eat it. I can try making it again, I think there’s enough ingredients left –” He cut himself off when he heard Jaal laugh affectionately.

Jaal reached up, cupping a hand against Julian’s cheek and smiling softly at the human. “It’s perfect because you made it, thinking of me. And I love you too, my _Darling One.”_ To his credit, he tried to finish the food before he set the plate aside and gently pulled Julian closer.

The young Pathfinder followed his lead, crawling more onto the bed until he was straddling the angaran’s lap. Jaal’s arms curled around his waist, his hands resting against Julian’s lower back. One of his fingers absent-mindedly traced part of the floral tattoo the Pathfinder had there. Julian had his own hands resting against Jaal’s chest. The relationship was still new to both of them. Neither knew how to be in a relationship with an alien. But it was something they were discovering together.

Julian brought his hands up, resting them on Jaal’s shoulders. They leaned forward together, catching each other’s lips. The kisses were soft, tender. When they parted, Julian found himself staring into Jaal’s eyes, despite the fact that eye contact made him uncomfortable.

“We’re the first human and angaran to be together,” he said, wonder lacing his words. “Like _together_ together.” He smiled when he asked, “Does that mean we’re making history?”

Jaal laughed, one of Julian’s favorite sounds, and placed a soft kiss, dripping with affection, on the tip of Julian’s nose. “I believe it does.”

**Author's Note:**

> Like/reblog on Tumblr [here](http://magicrobins.tumblr.com/post/161601849665/from-twitter-heres-a-prompt-for-mryder-x-jaal).


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